Sly Cooper Sketch: Carmelita and Penelope duo

[brendala]

I just felt like sketching Carmelita and Penelope fighting together. And I opted to humanize them because I suck at drawing anthro characters I wanted to challenge myself artistically. It’s not perfect (I did it in pen, so I didn’t have the benefit of an eraser when I messed up); but I still like the way it came out.

One of the things I had hoped to see in Sly Cooper 4: Thieves in Time was some interaction between Carmelita and Penelope. As much as I adore this series, it was always a bit of a bummer that it had very few cool, non-villain female characters. I LOVED Penelope in Sly 3 and I was curious to see how she and Carmelita would relate to one another if they met in Sly 4 (my guess was that they would both spend hours complaining about the hideous new outfits they got stuck with).

Unfortunately…..

WARNING!!!! SLIGHT SPOILERS FOR SLY 4 BELOW!!!!


….*ahem* unfortunately, Sanzaru Games (the developer that took over the series for the recent installment) seems to have no clue how to handle female characters without either turning them into shrill pieces of obnoxious fap material or ignoring ALL of their previous character developments (not to mention their established personalities) in order to turn them into soulless plot devices who only exist to deliver OMG!SHOCKING!TWISTS!!1!

So needless to say, I didn’t get my fun little girl bonding scene between Penelope and Carmelita. All I got was a confused mix of hatred for what the game did to every female that appeared in it and pure enjoyment of how fun it was to play when you ignored the latter half of the story and just went treasure hunting or whatever.

tl;dr Sly Cooper 4 is a VERY conflicting game. >_<

Comments

[earthstar-moon.livejournal.com]

Yuck, that sucks. Why is it so hard to understand how to write female characters. Would you say it's as bad as to what happened to Samus when Team Ninja made Other M?

I'm slowly getting through number 2. Is 4 worth getting at all then?

The sketch is cute by the way! ^_^

[brendala.livejournal.com]

I can't compare it to what happened to New-Samus because I've never played a Metroid game (so I don't know much about that controversy). But, if I recall correctly, the fans were upset because the game toned down Samus' bad-ass qualities, made her act over-emotional, and had her rely on men to tell her what to do. Is that right?

Anyhoo, I can't say much about why Sly 4 upset me without utterly spoiling the game's biggest plot point. But my big non-spoiler complaints about Sly 4 are...

1) The female characters were the only ones to receive radical re-designs. The male characters all got slight stylistic tweeks; but Carmelita and Penelope are almost unrecognizable. And the new designs sexualized them to a VERY uncomfortable degree. While Carmelita's old outfit wasn't exactly modest; the first three games never presented her like a sexual object (and she didn't have a GODDAM VISIBLE RIB CAGE either). The original trilogy always presented her as intelligent and strong and a great character with or without a connection/relationship to Sly Cooper. In Sly 4, she behaves like a shrill, tsundere teenager and there are many scenes that clearly exist just to titillate the audience (one mission has you use the PS3 sixaxis controls to make her shake her ass. I'M NOT KIDDING!).

This sexualization is even more egregious when it comes to Penelope (a character who debuts in Sly 3) because that character was a frumpy nerd/mechanic who always wore baggy overalls. Sly 3 NEVER sexualized her at all! And then this new game goes and completely re-designs her before throwing her on the back burner.


2) They try to throw in a massive plot twist just to make the story "shocking"; but the twist doesn't make any logical sense and it utterly destroys an important character that many fans really loved. It wanted to recapture the magic from Sly 2; but the new writers didn't grasp WHY Sly 2 was so good. They just saw that it had a kickass plot twist and decided to emulate that.

[brendala.livejournal.com]

I'm slowly getting through number 2. Is 4 worth getting at all then?

SQUEE! Now I can geek out and discuss the game with somebody! I actually just finished re-playing it the other day! ^_^;
How far along are you? I don't want to accidentally throw out a spoiler (and Sly 2 has some doozies!)

[earthstar-moon.livejournal.com]

I WAS the beginning of chapter two, however the disc I got was corrupted so I can't get past a certain point of breaking into the house. *grumble* So, I need to re-download it through the playstation store and get to the point again.

With that said, I'm LOVING this series. Sneaking around as Sly is just plain fun and Murray is freaking tank. There was one point when Stu and I were both laughing like crazy when Sly was drowning I couldn't get out and Sly just saluted us before he died. XD Nice touch.

The first boss as a pain in the butt to beat, at least to me, I've heard through playthroughs that he's suppose to be easy. @_@

[brendala.livejournal.com]

You downloaded the game through PSN? I've heard that the downloaded versions of Sly 2 and 3 have some weird issues like that. Sorry to hear it's true. :(
**snuggles PS2 discs**

The game is really easy once you get the hang of the controls and the camera. I sailed through the Dimitri fight when I re-played it. But Dimitri kicked my ass a dozen times the first time I played that game. So you're not alone.

Episode two is the Indian Palace, right? Here's a tip for when you fight Rajan later on (don't worry, it's not a spoiler)...
As soon as you can, purchase Murray's "Intimidating Roar" move from Thief Net. It will be your best friend whenever he's needed for a big brawl and/or a boss! ~_^

[earthstar-moon.livejournal.com]

Not quite, I had bought a used game of Sly 2 a year ago and only started to play it now. -_- So, now I'd figured I would try to download it since it's only $10. I hope I don't have those kind of issues with it.

Good, glad to hear that's it's not just me. Demetri was driving me crazy, so hopefully the second round will be easier. Thanks for the tip! ^_^

[brendala.livejournal.com]

Duh. I forgot that you said "corrupted disc". I need to learn to read. LOL

As for the download versions, I've heard of glitches here and there. But very few confirmed "game breaking" issues. But I've never actually played them. So take my word with a grain of salt.


Thanks for the tip! ^_^

No prob. I was overjoyed when I realized that Murray's intimidating roar move also worked on bosses (the intimidating roar makes enemies run away and stop attacking him for a few seconds). The Rajan battle is EXTREMELY difficult without it!